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What do we know about effective learning?
One of the most effective educational interventions is teaching metacognitive strategies -- i.e. giving students different tools and methods for learning as well as getting them to reflect on and improve their own learning processes (Summary of evidence).Our task in this section, then, is to evaluate which of these tools are the most effective at what point in the education process. Since we already established that at least a great part of learning should be self-regulated, or at least self-paced, teaching appropriate and powerful learning strategies would have to be one of the first things that need to happen in school.
For training specific skills, Anders Ericsson's research on Deliberate Practice offers a well-founded high-level framework to guide our efforts in instruction and training design.
For training specific skills, Anders Ericsson's research on Deliberate Practice offers a well-founded high-level framework to guide our efforts in instruction and training design.
What we think might be useful:
- Strategies for improving self-assessment. Students could track and assess their own progress, make explicit predictions about future progress or achievements, and then check these predictions against the actual outcomes. Known biases that could be reduced by implementing such strategies include the planning fallacy and the generalized Dunning-Kruger effect.
- Techniques for quicker uptake and better retention. For skills and tasks that require large amounts of declarative knowledge, uptake techniques such as fast skimming/scanning or speed reading, as well as various mnemonic skills, might be useful.
- Tools for rewarding progress, such as gamification of tasks and courses, techniques for emotional self-regulation, motivational narratives, etc. (Note that these should not be overused by teachers or coaches, so as not to turn school into a behaviorist conditioning facility. As with the other techniques in these list, most of these should be thought of as tools for students to use at their own discretion.)
- Methods for improving understanding, such as peer tutoring, structured summarizing, investigating propositions for falsifiability, reproducing experiments, etc.
External resources:
- "Peak: Secrets from the new science of expertise" by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool (HMH 2016) is the definitive account of Deliberate Practice. For an application to teaching design and classroom practice, see Deslauriers et al., "Improved learning in a large-enrolment physics class", Science 332 (2011).
- The EEF's summary of evidence on metacognitive strategies
- The Science of Learning -- a good summary of the existing evidence from Deans for Impact (click on the cover image on the left to get the report as .pdf)
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